OVO Arena Wembley – A Traveling Fool

Since I didn’t get to sleep until about 5am, I didn’t get up until 1pm. Too late for the included breakfast. So went back to the café where I had lunch the day before for a brunch. Had Eggs Benedict, but with smoked salmon in place of the usual ham. Absolutely delicious.

Afterwards stopped off at the Ben Franklin House and found that I had missed the start of the current tour and the next (and last for the day) would be at 4:15pm. So went back to the hotel for a bit. The Ben Franklin House was on Craven Street, which was right next to the café and in between the café and my hotel.

Back at the hotel, I discovered that the legitimate Simply Red Facebook page (the one with over two million members) had published a photo from the OVO Arena Wembley concert with me in it and another from the O2 Arena marquee that I was credited as having taken.

The Benjamin Franklin House (at 36 Craven Street, just off the Strand and close to Trafalgar Square) was built about 1730 and is the last standing former residence of Ben Franklin. He lived and worked there from 1757 to 1774. When he left, he returned to Philadelphia to help with the Declaration of Independence and other issues having to do with the American Revolution. The house was restored and opened to the public in 2006.

During the excavation and restoration, the remains of ten people were discovered to have been buried in the basement. An episode of “Secrets of the Dead” on PBS was dedicated to this discovery. The skeletal remains were found to be about 200 years old, which meant that they would have been buried there while Franklin was in residence. It was also discovered that Franklin’s friend, William Hewson, was the person responsible for the bones. He lived in the house for two years. As an early anatomist, he worked in secret due to legal issues at that time related to dissecting certain cadavers (about half of them appear to have been children).

When I returned to the house, I was running a bit late, so the fellow who let me in had me join the tour and then pay him later. There were only four of us on the tour. The person who led the tour portrayed Polly Stevenson Hewson, daughter of Franklin’s landlady and wife of the fellow who was dissecting cadavers in the basement. She became a “second daughter” to Ben Franklin during his time there.

Parts of the house were still original, such as floorboards, ceilings and staircases. After the tour, when I went to pay for it, I told the guy that my Reynolds ancestors in Boston had owned the house where Ben Franklin had been born on Milk Street back in 1706. His father, Josiah had a total of seventeen children from two wives. Ben was number fifteen and was the tenth and last boy. He was baptized at the Old South Meeting House, which was across the street.

Robert Reynolds (my 10^th great grandfather) and his wife, Mary, arrived in Boston in 1630 on one of the Winthrop ships. They settled in the part of Boston that borders Milk Street to the north and Washington to the west. They are buried in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. The land they owned included a stretch along Milk Street that included the house in which Benjamin Franklin was born. Robert’s grandson, Nathaniel owned the property at the time when he was born. Nathaniel’s son, John eventually moved to Marblehead, MA. This was where my American Revolution ship’s captain 6^th great grandfather, Nathaniel Reynolds, was born.

His son-in-law, Elisha Freeman, was also a ship’s captain and my 5^th great grandfather. My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Freeman. The first of the Freeman family to arrive in what eventually became the U.S. did so in 1630. His name was Samuel Freeman (another 10^th great grandfather). He arrived in Salem.

The guy at the Benjamin Franklin House showed me the front door, which was original to the house and said that I could photograph it. He also let me hold the chain in my hand. Franklin would have held that same chain every night when he locked up the house.

Next time – The Tower of London at Night and the Ceremony of the Keys

After eating the salad I had purchased on the way back to my hotel, I dressed for the concert. This time I wore a red sequined, cold shoulder top. This was the actual date of the release of Simply Red’s first album, Picture Book, back in 1985. I was also going to be sitting front row center. I was honoring that special date by dressing up and using the color red.

I took a cab from the Railway Station to the arena and went to the VIP entrance. I received my VIP Front Row Experience carry bag with a VIP lanyard, a drinks coaster, a poster, a program, a journal with a pen, and a Bluetooth speaker. As I was being taken to my seat, I encountered a woman who was wearing a red sequined jacket. She was at the end of the middle section in the first row.

Shortly after I sat down, I met Carine from Belgium. She was just a couple seats over to my left. She and the couple seated between us were lovely people and ready to have a great time. I was pretty much directly in front of the pieces of paper that Mick had taped to the floor. One was a set list. The other contained some prompts for what he wanted to say in between songs.

Carine had noticed Sarah Brown, one of the band’s former backup singers (from 1995 to 2008) going to her seat to our right and up at the side of stage. She pointed her out to me. I was very glad that she had a few days later when someone in the fan group saw that same woman walking down the stairs to head backstage during a video of “Something Got Me Started” (the first of the three encore songs) and was certain that she was someone else entirely. But I was able to say that I was there and saw Sarah myself.

During Soul II Soul’s set (which was much more fun up close) we found that the security at the arena was putting their priority on the people who were walking back and forth in front of us to get more drinks. Once the Simply Red set began and several of us stood up and moved forward to the barricade so we could clearly see the band without anyone getting in our way, we were told to sit down. That was when a few of us got a bit rebellious.

We had gotten the most expensive seats in the place with the idea that nobody could get in front of us and ruin our view of the stage. Carine and I both thought it was ridiculous and we weren’t going to take it sitting down. A woman on the other side of me was worried they might throw us out if we didn’t remain seated, but I said that the more of us that stood the better. There would be too many of us to threaten. So, since I knew that “Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)” would be the next song, I said something to Carine and to the women on my other side. As soon as the first notes were played, we were on our feet. Carine and I motioned to everyone around us to stand and they did. Most of us stayed on our feet for pretty much the rest of the show. I only sat down a couple of times when my back complained loudly.

At one point, when Mick was explaining how the song “Enough”, which was co-written with Joe Sample, came about, a man could be heard talking quite loudly far down to my right (which would have been stage left to the band). Mick stopped talking and looked in the man’s direction. The man quieted down for a moment until Mick began to speak again. This time Mick walked over to where the man was sitting and looked directly at him. Since the guy didn’t seem to get the message, Mick bent over and pointed at him, telling him to shut up. He followed that up by returning to where he had been standing before he was so rudely interrupted and apologizing to the audience, explaining that he needed to be able to concentrate on what he was saying. He then continued his story and sang the song.

The next day, the press and some social media said that he had gone on a “shocking rant”. They were blowing it entirely out of proportion. Nothing shocking. No rant. Just a performer telling a disrespectful member of the audience to “shut it”, so he could continue the show.

The remainder of the concert went along with no further interference from noisy or drunk audience members or security threatening to remove anyone from the front row. The band put in another stellar performance throughout and received an ovation from a standing and cheering crowd at the end of the final song of the main set – “Fairground”. Then another at the end of the final song of the encore – “Holding Back the Years”. And Mick did this entire show while dealing with an eye infection.

After the show, some more people came up to me and asked if I was Trisha. There were also people stopping me to comment on my sparkling red sequins.

The Simply Red Facebook page (with two million followers) published five photos a couple days later. The second photo showed Mick singing onstage near where I was standing. I could also be seen. Photo number five was of the marquee at the O2 Arena and I was credited as the photographer. Both photos really tickled me. I will share both of these photos in my next post.

The day after the concert someone else in the audience posted a video on YouTube of the band performing “You Make Me Feel Brand New”. Mick was standing for the entire song near where I can clearly be seen standing and singing along directly in what was his sight line. The fella filming it kept me in the frame most of the time. Then the couple to my left, between me and Carine, stood up. It was harder to see me then, but my ponytail was still frequently visible. I have included a screenshot that I took from that video here.

Next time – A late start and the Ben Franklin House